Arrows Over the Moon
by Jirubee
Summary: Regret, longing, seduction - Kagome found herself jaded years after the well had sealed, yearning to feel alive as she had in her youth. Now a 24 year old nurse, she finds herself impulsively trying to make her way back to that world. What was left of her lover? Her friends? What she finds isn't what she expected and must set out on a journey of her own to reclaim what was lost.
1. Chapter 1

A jaded twenty-four year old nurse, Kagome Higurashi, reflects on her life years after the well closes. After many failed attempts, she can no longer accept it and impulsively tries again with surprising results. What lays before her is more than she ever bargained for an reclaiming the love that was lost to her is the only way she can survive. M. Alt-canon.

**Arrows Over the Moon**

**AN: I haven't had a lot of time for writing lately, and I apologize. I've been focused on my newfound indie art career and traveling around with my husband's band, on top of taking care of my little ones. I hope that you guys enjoy this piece. I wrote it a while back and debating posting it. Let me know what you think. It probably needs a little adjustment. Haha. Happy reading guys! (This is only a three chapter story. Really long chapters...)**

Implications of Simplicity

It wasn't in her job description to put up with verbal abuse from her patients, but he had a certain wily charm about him. Every time he pressed the call button, cradled along the grated side of his arm rest, she cringed.

Certainly, the nurse would have to attend to his needs without question, or any distain. It was easier said than done on most occasions, the girl decided as she pulled a pen from her sloppy black bun. This split shift was killing her just about as bad as the over-used Dr. Schol's in her worn down Croc's.

Taking a sip of her coffee, she pushed herself out of her chair at the front desk. A sing-song clatter of keyboards and half-hearted laughter melodiously played with her eardrums. If things had been as they were in her youth, she could have been warm beneath the sunlight and basking in the colorful array of flora across the ancient era of Nippon.

Her heart seceded and held still for a moment, leaving her gasping for breath as blood pricked at her cheeks. "Get it together, you aren't a little girl anymore." The woman said to herself as she pattered forward towards the illuminated hallway that housed a handful of partitions. Each room was covered with glass with tasteless mauve privacy curtains.

Her patient wasn't going to be too thrilled that she was taking so long, but these sleepless nights shook long dead memories from their resting places. "Okay, let's do this." She clapped quietly, grabbing the clipboard from the wall-side basket. Her small knuckles rapped against the door before parting it with a crunching clack. "Evening, Nita-saaan." The woman sang, pressing a warm smile upon her face.

The older man wrinkled his nose against the plastic tubing in his nostrils. "Hmph, it's been taking you longer and longer to get here. I could have been dead by now." He grumbled, voice hoarse and shaken from phlem. "Nurses are supposed to be attentive, Kagome."

Biting her lower lip, Kagome crossed her arms over the clipboard. "Nita-san, I've taken care of people for a long time. It's all I've ever done, or wanted to do." She reassured him, easing herself over towards his mobile of electronics and moniters. "It seems like you aren't going to be dying any time soon. Your results came back, and the doctor will be giving you a script for some antibiotics. Your leg will be in a cast for a while, but you'll be fine with physical therapy."

The man rolled his sunken in eyes as he flipped the channels with his remote. Kagome couldn't understand why he didn't care for her. Everyone else in the hospital adored her. The only other person that had remotely shown displeasure for her care was a certain someone that no longer existed. She wasn't sure if that pained her more than the idea that had he had died long ago, or if her heart still yearned for that shroud of abysmal hope.

Motion after motion, the girl became more aware that her body was slowing. Her mind raced, of course, privy to the notion that there was a world beyond the sterility of this house of decay and afflictions. Healing was all she had left to connect her to the dream-like world that grasped at her imagination with hallucinations of her life prior to her career.

Nita-san kept insulting her. He would continue to insult her. She would continue to come to work with a mish-mosh of drab colored scrubs, pinned back long hair, and a personalized coffee thermos to prevent theft.

But what would it have been like if she had chosen to stay? She would probably still be pining for the affections of the wayward man with the hair like moonlit silk, crying beneath the trees for home, and swimming in the cold rivers outlining the country. If _he _was still alive, she wondered if he remembered her. All of the time that passed, surely she would have been forgotten like all of those that perished in the act of moving on.

As she washed her hands, disposing of the latex-free gloves in the trash, Kagome caught a glimpse of the television flickering an old Edo war-drama. Water dripped off her fingers as she arched to see the black and white film scroll across the 22" perched television. Nita-san scoffed in amusement as he watched her mouth fall ajar.

"You like these old movies?" He rumbled, pushing himself upon his knuckles until he sat upright. The liver spots on his hands and forearm hung like knobs as he waved at the girl.

Kagome cleared her head enough to turn to him, "I normally don't watch them, but this one takes me to a different place. I watch it every time it's on." She said, finding the man to finally shed a genuine smile.

"You don't strike me as the type. You look like you like your frills and pampering." Nita-san jested as Kagome dragged a chair to his bed side.

"Well, I've been through more than anyone could imagine." She laughed emptily. "I'm only 24 and have seen more, accomplished so much and saved countless lives. I had a life before I chose to be a nurse, but most people wouldn't understand how wild I was."

"You know that all of us have a little magic in us." Nita breathed, raising up a hand against his I.V.'s and arranged himself attentively. "A lot of young people forget the stories from our families, and the books and scrolls..."

Kagome looked down at the scuff marks along the tiled floor as she brushed the nervous chills away from her arms. "I grew up at the Sunset Shrine. I wasn't allowed to forget the past, I'm still not." She whispered softly, finding heat prying at the corners of her eyes as pressure built behind them.

Nita seemed enthralled, perking a pair of thick bushy brows along the creases in his forehead. "You know the tale of Beggar Girl?" He asked, leaning over his arm rest to see the almost ill expression implanted on her features.

"She chose to go to the West, serving her savior and Lord as an equal in the times of turmoil and rested upon a throne made of stars." Kagome quivered, jostling the darkening spires of her memory. A rapturous want seized her veins as she shot a panicked glance out the 4th story window.

"Ah, it's one of my favorites." The man sighed. His calloused thumbs rolled over his arm as his weak teeth nipped at his lip. "There was one story that I loved more than any," He said as Kagome gripped at the navy fabric covering her legs. She could feel the name on the tip of his tongue, sending rivulets of eletricity through her veins. It was something that she knew would happen one day, and as it were, she still wasn't ready after all of these years.

"Wh-which one?" She mustered, flashing her glassy gray eyes over the frail figure in the bed. Her heart attempted to escape through her throat, but was stamped down by the jagged breaths that refused to let it free itself.

"You lived on the shrine that the tree belongs to, so you should know this story very well." He eyed her precariously, expecting her to open her mouth and sing the tune of the old shamisan song. The knowing vigor in his voice made the nurse's body tense. She glanced at the clock with dismay that there wasn't another round for nearly an hour.

It would be rude for her to excuse herself, and she'd be damned if she ran away from it any longer. Maybe talking about it would make her feel better - even if it wasn't truly her expression.

"The Goshinboku grants many blessings and transcends time." Kagome said quietly, cautiously. "Have you heard the true tale? Or the ones that have been written?"

"I've old heard the ones that have been written and read by my own eyes. I didn't know there was another version, but spoken word is more romantic. Your name always makes me think of it."

"Alright, then." Kagome licked her lips, untying her jacket from her waist to wrap it around her arms. She could do this, she resolved. Every trembling bone in her body could shake to the marrow, but her heart... It ached in a way that was revolting the acknowledgment of her past.

As soon as she forced out the first few sputtered words, so ineloquent and unjust, she closed her eyes. Nita closed his as well, reclining against the hard pillow beneath his head. Her voice was small, certain as though she knew every part.

Kagome recalled sitting at the lacquered table with her now deceased grandfather, now grown brother and withering mother. She had been ungrateful of the gift she had recieved and fed it to her obsese tabi. Had she not done so, would she have still been sitting at that table? Would she have complained about her day like most teens - about school, jobs, boys?

Instead, that pesky creature lead her into a trap where she was absorbed by the voracious hands of a thousand legged beast with a hunger for what lay inside of her. The warmth of time engulfed her, sinking her like a ship in a storm.

What was a child of fifteen to think when the pressue shot from her hands in a decadent light to absolve the ravenous creature? It was something of lore, not of reality, was it not? Spellbound, she fought her way through forest and vine, until she found a princely boy slumbering upon his pseudo-death bed wrapped in a blanket of roots.

That moment was more of an impact than any of the absurd happenings until that point. When her hands crept along his body, releasing him from the unearthly grave, what was she to expect of him? Gratitude? A thank you for saving him?

No.

None of those things.

Upon seeing him for the first time, she was in love. Whether she realized it at the time, she had always belonged to him. To take, to cast a side - her heart had already chosen. That moment was suspended and the breath in her body was expelled into the balmy night as she fought twice for her life. The silver of his hair gleamed like the stars as they fell beneath the murky light of the moon. His eyes were feral, wild like the claws that peeked from his cuticles.

Those terrifying hands became tender, longing in touches as they grew into older versions of themselves. Their travels, their companions, their lives were forever intertwined from that moment on. Whatever the past had written for them was washed away as they rebuilt a destiny fate could not have penned.

Kagome felt the sun on her skin, the smell of honeysuckles filling the base of the Goshinboku, could feel the strength in InuYasha's back as he carried her across the country. What she would give to feel the heat of his skin and the feel of his mouth linger on hers. They had almost made love once,when the dastardly band had almost killed her and their beloved companions.

She was drunk on the visages passing through the backs of her eyes. Eagerly, and absently, Kagome reached forward, finding nothing but the breeze of the air conditioning. The man on the bed had watched her smirking as the cresent curl of her lashes caught the dewy film of tears that crept from her eyes.

Why was she even telling this man such a story? The story he knew was probably the tale of the Shikon no Tama, not the love story that she endured. There was no room for love in the Tale of InuYasha, and his shrew...

Shaking her head, Kagome bit at her knuckles as the darkness spread across the room as the light timed out. "I'm sorry, I always get so emotional when I tell that story. I don't think I can finish. You know the end, don't you?" She breathed, brushing away a few stray tears from her lashes.

Nita shed an apologetic smile and nodded solemnly. "It is what it is, Kagome." He said, reaching over to pay her arm as a parent to their child. "You'll wait a life time to feel a connection to someone, and realize that you had actually had it once. It's more of a life than a story, isn't it? Our times have changed and all of the wonder is gone."

"It's so personal for me. I don't know why I have to get so wrapped up in a fairytale." Kagome sniveled, lying through her teeth. She could feel the world of skyscrappers and high-rise plazas caving around her. What she would give to run barefooted in the grass, no concrete to stumble upon.

Nita sighed, "Time can't take a lover away forever. Time does not truly exist. It's these numbers that set boundaries for what our lives can and cannot do. Just like now, it's 1:05 in the morning, you have rounds just because a number tells you so."

The girl nodded and began to push herself from her chair, keeping her eyes away from the television as it flickered in the background. "I suppose you're right. Time says that your doctor will be here soon, too. You better pretend you were getting some sleep so we both don't get in trouble." She teased, checking his vitals one more time. "You had a phone call earlier, are you going to have anyone stay with you tonight? It is getting late."

The withering old man shrugged a bony shoulder from beneath his gown. "Never can tell. He works the night shift at the mortuary, so I haven't the slighest."

"If I see him, I'll make sure you get another bed in here." She said, pushing her pen back into her hair as she flipped through the chart.

"Don't be alarmed, honey. He's kind of intemidating. Most people think he's a shrew."

Kagome rolled her eyes and wondered where he ever could have gotten that attribute from. If there was still magic left in the world, her eyes couldn't see it anymore. There were no glimmering hints of now-debunked creatures. She had tried for years to use the well again, to no avail. All she saw were normal people, living normal lives.

It was maddening to hold such a secret in. Surely, some of her companions had living kin, but how awkward would that have been? They probably had no idea what their families had been through in Sengoku Jidai. It was a secret that, as she went room to room in her idle state, she wished she could have screamed to the heavens.

Each face that she saw was whittled down and ailing. The astringent aroma from the bleach and canned antibacterial sprays had become almost nauseating. The only thing she had to look forward to at the end of her shift was a microwave dinner and a long Vespa ride home. Her boyfriend would be asleep and she would be left to sit and stare at the television with one of Buyo's kittens, named MewMew.

Fumbling with the wiring on an old woman's cart, Kagome flipped the small watch over on her wrist and exhaled. Twenty more minutes and she could dissolve into the couch for a few hours. If _Mister Shrew _was going to show up, he needed to soon. The other staff, full of middle-aged women and bitter men in their twenty-somethings, surely wouldn't be as forgiving.

Closing the last heavy door behind her, Kagome relaxed against it as it snapped shut. Her brain had become far too heavily crowded with images of those three years. They all blurred together creating one, large fuming cloud of regret. Wiping away a beading of sweat from her brow, the woman ushered on to the large circulation desk and rushed through her detailing.

One of the younger nurses on staff took her place as she pulled her belongings from beneath the desk. She could barely see straight as she pulled her hair down to tumble about her waist. It felt good at the end of a shift. It was comparable to taking a warm, soapy bath after days, or weeks of traversing the old countryside.

Kagome paused as she punched elevator buttons. Why now? Why did all of these feelings have to resurface after so long? Gripping at the bridge of her nose, she pressed until she saw the floating blacks and greens behind her eyes.

She wasn't _that girl _anymore. She was no longer a virginal heroine, summoned by some evil to vanquish a demon far beyond her years. No, she was a nurse. She was a girlfriend, soon to be wife. She was the caretaker for her mother, surrogate mother to her brother.

As the gold-plated doors parted, a surly man, who looked to be in his early thirties, stood holding a brown paper bag and a gas-station box dinner. She assumed from his expression that he was, indeed, Mr. Shrew.

"Are you here to see Nita-san?" Kagome asked, adjusting her purse over her shoulder as she held the door open.

The man shrugged in his denim jacket and blew a breath into his frayed hair. He looked like he had been through a lot, and decidedly, Kagome knew when to step aside. "Yeah, is he still on this floor or did you guys move him around?"

"He's still in the same room. If the other staff has any issues tell them to page me." She said with a vagrant smile. She kept staring at a small, heart shaped scar below his lip. InuYasha had had one after the incident with dubious Thunder Brother's and she felt her stomach collapse.

The man grimaced at her and rolled his dark eyes. "Are you going to let me by, or are you just going to gawk at me?"

Kagome's cheeks were bloodied, "Forgive me. I just have a lot on my mind."

He shook his head and weaved away from her as he inspected her name tag in passing. "Well, I'll see you around, Kagome." He said, grinning awkwardly at her. The woman furrowed her manicured brows at the braid of long hair tucked into the collar of his coat. It was unusual for a man to have hair that length these days.

It made her miss the honor tied to it, and the feral men that wore it so proudly. As the doors closed, Kagome leaned with her hands holding the numbered pad. Her eyes watched the man disappearing around the corner, only to find him turning half-heartedly back.

She lost her breath when they made the briefest of eye contact. Did he know something about her that she wasn't aware of? She wasn't that kind of woman. He was an attractive man, lanky, rude, slightly odd features and thick brows. He was just like how she liked them.

Blushing, Kagome bit her pouting lips, slamming her fingers nervously down on the button pad. She couldn't make it to the ground floor fast enough. "What the hell am I so worked up for?" She muttered to herself. Maybe he reminded her of _him_. Seeing Mr. Shrew was enough to make her foolish enough to jump through all of the wells still live in the entirity of Japan. Her boyfriend wouldn't notice she was even gone until she hadn't been home for a couple of days.

Assuming that he was even there, of course. Once upon a time, Kagome had dated Hojo-kun and almost fallen in love when she met Koji. He worked in the martial arts school next to Hojo-kun's acupuncture facility when she ran into him outside.

He was smoking a cigarette, tying his hair back into a ponytail when she became smitten. It may have been the way he looked at her with his gruff demeanor, but she was his. As the girl mused about that day, she found herself lost in the three story staff garage looking for her scooter. It was a gift from Koji a few years prior, saying she was too old to ride little pink bicycles and paint pictures of school girls and demons.

In a way, as she stumbled over the concrete to find her ride parked between two mountainous SUV's, she scowled. Maybe her life would have been different if she hadn't listened to people who pushed her further away from herself. She became bitter, overly negative in comparision to the wishful dreamer in her youth.

Nothing was impossible then. Now, as she plopped on the scooter, prying the helmet from the back compartment, Kagome realized that her life wasn't terribly different. Instead of fighting demons with magic and searching for pieces of a cursed jewel, she fought her battles against illnesses and searched for pieces of herself.

Riding alone on these nights, feeling the slightest hint of balmy air caress her cheeks and hands as she pursued the lighted tunnels and flickering neons, crawling across the city streets, she felt almost at home. The stars that lit the skyline were bedraggled by the reflection of smog and artificial light from the buildings and she frowned.

Laying in the astral gardens, at the edge of InuYasha's forest and the well, was among her favorite things. To this day, she remembered the first time she laid there, pulling InuYasha down beside her as he quietly enjoyed her company.

He wouldn't have liked who she had become. Hell, no one did. Her best friend subsequently stopped talking to her the day after her 24th birthday due to the failed attempt at a surprise party. Kagome never the fairer, decided to march out and sit beneath the balcony and smoke her fourth or fifth cigarette ever, and sulk. No one else understood why her birthday had been such an issue, but what was she to say?

"Please, I was dragged into the past by a centipede yokai when I turned fifteen. I shattered a jewel that was inside me and I fell in love with a hanyou?" No. She wasn't allowed by any means to share that with anyone so personally.

The story she told Old Nita-san was different.

For all he knew, or cared, she was just a lonely little nurse that had mental problems. Mr. Shrew thought she was smitten, surely and poor Koji... Koji didn't realize he was being compared to a man that she could never have.

He was the closest thing she had to InuYasha, and as she rode passed her exit, idly paying attention to the familiar path to her mother's, she knew that she didn't love him. She had tried. The love she held for InuYasha had died long ago, but not dead enough to flicker back to life on nights like these.

Sure enough, Kagome realized as she passed by the last set of closed markets, that she had driven across the city to her mother's. Grumbling, her numb hands slapped against the handle bars of the scooter as she turned the key.

Beside her rested the daunting stairs. They had been such a trivial thought in her teens, and now they seemed to span a distance that she didn't remember. The torii stood tall at the apex, a little more warped than they were when she lived there. Sighing, the girl combed her fingers through her messy hair and grabbed her bag.

Each step felt like her knees were grating against bone. The breeze seemed to tease her, making her shudder with the sticky film of the last days of summer. The top of the stairs were dirtied by leaves and pine needles, which needed a good sweeping. Sota usually cleaned the grounds once a week, but they needed more.

The flagstaff were broken, still pale and smooth in some places. Kagome couldn't bring herself to look towards the Goshinboku, or the little well house. It would have been too painful. Every inch of her skin crawled, oozing hesitance out of the pin-pricks of her pores.

When she made it to the front door, she found one light still on - aside from the three large illuminated flood lights her mother kept for security. Reaching into her bag, she fumbled until she found a keyring with the right key and unlocked the front door to see her mother's guard dog.

You would expect a guard dog to be a lumbering, large beast. Instead, Kagome found a growling Daschund rolling around Buyo's old cat bed. The girl let herself in and reached down to pet Tako on the head. Sota said it's hair looked like an octopus, and Tako just stuck.

Aside from the living room, the rest of the house was the same. Everything smelled like persimmons and cleaner, still arranged the same after the remodel. (Or, the time InuYasha destroyed the kitchen.) Kagome knew her mother was home, due to the low-hum of the television coming from her room.

Quietly, she and Tako dug through the fridge for a snack, leaving Kagome to plop down at the old table where she had shared many a meal with her hanyou and family. Tako hopped into her lap, eating the small strips of cold bacon Kagome nibbled on.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to cry, or just go to sleep in her old room. She hadn't dared to set foot in there in years. If she stayed, she slept in Sota's room or rode the sofa for fear of finding a lost photo, or _anything _that connected her to _him_.

When the little dog leapt away, Kagome followed and peeked around the corner into her mother's room. She was laying there, bundled to the nose in blankets. Her hair was longer, peppered with gray and white bundles of curls. She had aged fairly well, but was certainly of a certain age she didn't like to speak of.

Like a spector, Kagome came and went unnoticed. The split-level stairs rested in the dark hallway, leading her into the bowels of her childhood. She stood there, fingering the wooden railing, debating whether or not she should or shouldn't...

After a few minutes, that tingling sensation in her chest became to heavy, too obnoxious to deal with it. Solemnly, she fought the nausea that accompanied it as she trudged slowly up the steps to the platform. To the left, Sota's room rested with the "No Girls Allowed" sign, which was ammended in his high school years to "No Girls Allowed Unless You're Hot."

Kagome had no problem snooping around his room. He still stayed over quite often and all of his manly essentials were strewn about the bed and dresser. His staple of video games and consoles had grown and were stacked near his small flat screen. There was a small, red 3 pack of condoms peaking from the edge of his nightstand, which made Kagome cringe. If their mother had seen them she would have died, she thought as she placed them in a drawer.

It wasn't long before she was greeted by the announcement of Tako's company, by way of jingling tags and pitter-pattering feet. The small dog whimpered at her door and scratched at the base. Kagome glowered, "Damn animals, always making me do things I don't want to." She breathed, flailing her arms as she walked to her old room.

Courage wasn't something that came easily, but she relented to wrapping her hand around the brass knob and closing her eyes. It would definitely soften the sting to set a pace for the shit hitting the fan as soon as she went in. She hadn't felt this sick since she had the flu last month.

"This better not be bad, Tako, otherwise I'm going to have to make a hat out of you." Kagome said under her breath as she opened the door. When the air hit her face, she felt like falling. It smelled like her perfume and still held the draught of a parted window. Opening her eyes, she inhaled as she instantly spotted the Goshinboku resting outside of her window.

The small marring of claw marks still lined the white paint near the sill. Her bed was covered in the pink comforter she always used and her desk still sat with a little dust and photos of school. Hell, her mother had even left a text book and notepad resting in their spots. Kagome didn't have any clothing left in the house, save for a uniform or two from middle and high school. She had far outgrown the greens and whites.

She fingered the fabric as she passed by the closet and removed the red scarf from the one that wasn't wrapped in a drycleaning bag. Tako had taken liberity in hoping onto her bed and nuzzling beneath the mound of pillows at the top. Kagome couldn't place the feeling that seized her. It was just odd, almost strangulated.

She sat down with the dog and smoothed her hands over the cool fabric beneath her bottom. Out of habit, she chewed at her lip, longingly staring into what was left of the forest line. Restlessly, Kagome shot up and involuntarily sped to her window, heart flittering wildly as she shoved it open. Leaning out, she noticed the well house door was parted, exposing the smallest sliver of light from the moon.

She could see the step. The first step.

Was she foolish for wanting to try after all of these years? Did the well not open for her because of her feelings at the time? Was her life destined to belong in shambles after such a great journey? All of these questions inundated her like a hurricane erroding the shoreline.

InuYasha had surely forgotten her, if he was even still alive.

Was he still a hanyou? Was he human? Did his yokai blood thin the older he became? Did he survive the war?

Kagome wrung her hands through her hair as though she were mad. There was a dire need to escape this life she had built out of emptiness. She could no longer bear it. This wasn't what was meant for her. She was fated to exist for greatness, not as a hollow shell. This was what Kikyo must have felt like in her rebirth. It was unjust and cruel to assume that one would want something that was written for another.

Closing her eyes, Kagome prayed to the heavens as she recalled the one possession she still owned of InuYasha's. A few days after the well had sealed, she had found his robes buried in a box in the well house. She had instantly become ill and cried. They had been stuffed back in the box Jii-chan had found them in and sealed with a dime-store sutra.

Blindly, Kagome bolted from her room, leaving Tako yipping as he ran around in circles. He soon jumped off the bed and followed her thundrous footsteps on the wooden floor. Her mother as surely up by this point, and as it were, she was stumbling out of her room.

"Kagome, what are you doing?" She muttered, wrapping up in a plush minty colored robe. Her daughter was rifling through the drawers in the kitchen, blazing hot beneath the creamy yellow lights.

"Mama, where are Jii-chan's keys to the boxes in the well house? I _need _them." Kagome said frantically, finding her mother's disposition to be less than surprised.

Ume ran a hand through her hair as she shuffled about in her house slippers. Tako pawed at her legs until she picked him up, "Kagome, I'm not sure. Jii-chan hid them. Everything was so valuable to him that he didn't even trust me."

"How disrespectful is it to break the box with a hammer?" Kagome paused, raising her brows curiously, oblivious to the guilt that ate at her.

Her mother rolled her eyes and walked towards the counter to brew a cup of coffee. "You need to slow down and tell me what's going on. I didn't have to worry about you this much when you were a teenager..." she sighed.

Kagome's eyes widened and she scoffed, turning to her mother's hunched over form in awe. "_Mama! You let me jump into a well and fight demons with a __**boy**__ five hundred years in the past!_ _That __**is **__when you __**should **__have worried!_"

Ume pinched the bridge of her nose and scowled. "Oh please, that InuYasha was too afraid to touch you inappropriately. He took care of you, didn't he?"

"You're missing my point, Mama."

"No, Kagome. I understand that it was convuluted of me to let my child do something like that. Do you know what I would have done to do something like that?"

"This is almost as painful as talking to Nita-san and Mr. Shrew." Kagome muttered, resuming her hunt for the keys in the cupboards.

"You wanted to stay, didn't you?" Ume asked, taking a seat at the low lying table.

"What kind of question in that? Of course I wanted to. InuYasha was the only man I ever loved and my only real friends are dead and gone. I'm just a part of a fairytale." Kagome seethed, slamming the doors shut as she finally slumped down in defeat.

"Have you tried the well again?" Her mother asked, sipping on her coffee.

"I have nothing that connects me to that era without the keys." Kagome huffed, holding her head in her hands like a scolded child.

Ume closed her worn eyes and quietly pushed herself away from the table. Kagome watched her mother's form disappear behind the pantry door and watched as she fumbled around the kitchen. When she returned, she held a hammer in her hands with her father's intials carved into the side of the smooth handle.

"Jii-chan would be so proud." Ume said sarcastically, extending the tool to her daughter.

Kagome aptly took it, fingering the smooth head absently. "Are you sure?"

"Kagome, you would have done it anyway."

"That is a good point, isn't it?" The girl smiled. It was her first genuine smile in months. "I think it's crazy that I'm trying to do this after all this time. If it doesn't work, I think I'll just jump off Tokyo Tower like a madman."

"Kagome..." Ume breathed, "Did you ever think so hard when it _did _work?"

"Sometimes," She replied honestly. "I was so afraid that it wouldn't let me through sometimes. I never knew anything so amazing could exist. To have that taken away is like being addicted to a drug - a hard one - and struggling to live without it after it's gone. At first, I was fearful it was my feelings, or uncertainty. I guess I missed my opportunity."

Kagome held her breath in the wake of hearing her own raspy voice. It was pushing three, and there wasn't much more time she could waste. If Koji looked for her, he would try the hospital first and here second. The hospital would live without her if the well worked. The idea of it actually happening was so slim that she didn't think she would even begin to know what to do.

Pushing herself to her feet, Kagome hugged her mother and held on for a moment. Tako jingled about as she slid on her shoes and zipped her jacket to her breast. Ume followed her and flipped on a few of the lights lining the shrine house and held the old well house door open with a flashlight shining in.

Kagome was diluted. Inching along the rows of boxes and glass cases, sutras strewn about and neatly placed pottery, the girl found the back of the house to be covered in cobwebs. Through the murky light, she spotted the wooden trunk, stuffed in the back near the wall. She placed the flashlight beneath her chin as she struggled to pull it out of hiding.

As she manuevered it onto the small area of standing room, she pulled the hammer from her scrub pocket and began voraciously swatting at the moldy wood. It didn't take much until the brightly colored garment peered warmly at her. She felt the planks scrap at her sleeves as she plucked the haori from its home.

Spellbound, the woman crushed it to her chest in disbelief. She stroked the fine material as she fought the urge to wept upon it the threads. "Inu...Yasha..." She breathed, inhaling the musty odor of pines and age. Below the mildew in the room, she could still find his scent thickly laced in the fabric.

Ume peeked in and expressed her grief in silence. She watched as her daughter held tightly to the haori and walked to the small rickety ladder they fashioned for her. It was dryrotted and mangled by flooding and weather.

Ume placed a hand on her shoulder, as she had many times as they stared in utter darkness at an even more ominous blackness. Kagome's eyes were transfixed, never moving as she lowered herself on baited breath.

She sat upon the lip for several minutes before Tako came barreling into the well house. He yipped and carried on like he was injured before stumbling over the lip. Kagome panicked, gasping as she leaned forward trying to capture her mother's best friend. It had been Buyo all those years ago. A fat cat and a scrawy dog were different. Buyo would have managed. Tako, on the other hand, would have ended up at the vet with a broken leg and a doggy wheelchair.

It had taken a few seconds for Kagome to catch him before he hit the bottom. Her mother called for her, but she hadn't heard her. Tako was no where to be found and her mother was gone in a plane of existence that no longer existed.

Kagome's skin burned with warmth and spiraled with a bottomless wave of realization. She slapped her palms to her cheeks to find them weightlessly tingling within the vortex of orbs and starlit hues that were taking her home. A panic attack gripped at her as she struggled to breathe. Her cheeks were fiery, sore from the heat that permeated. And her heart...

Her heart was a war drum.

The infinity of falling ended abruptly with her knees upon bone and muddy earth. She began to cry, expelling years of tension, want, poisonous vigor into the ground. Her fingers wound into the soil, dirtying them with disbelief. Daring to look up, Kagome's gray eyes reflected the heavenly pallor that swam above her like a garden of stars.

Trembling, she stood and brushed her knees as she gripped to the slick, dewy vines winding down from the world above her. The haori was stuffed into her jacket, still folded. Sniveling, she mustered the strength to surmount her prison.

Outside of the well was exactly the same. The grass was lush, thick with the last flickers of fireflies crawling across the night. The trees were still green, heavy with leaves and flora abounding around their roots. She inhaled the crisp, clean air as she found herself wandering along a familiar house to Kaede-baba's village.

If InuYasha was still alive, he would have come for her. He would have been there instantly. She had to look for him now. Search for any trace of the beast that she had tamed. Taking a moment to collect herself, Kagome swallowed only to realized she was parched.

Across the dirt path, there were newly built huts and gardens planted along the fenced in lines. Kaede's hut was still standing. It was more dilapidated than she remembered, but there was a light still gleaming in the window. No soul was roaming on this night and it made her heart sink. Kaede-bachan surely couldn't have still been alive in these times.

She was lucky to make it to fifty. She would have been well into her seventies by now, the girl thought as she straightened herself up. When she reached the entrance, she heard whispers of young girls as they giggled about the village boys. Kagome's brows instantly furrowed, leading her to believe that Kaede was, infact, deceased.

Clearing her throat, the voices hushed as one set of feet pattered along the floor. When the curtain moved, a girl of marrying age smiled crookedly, nervously keeping her distance. "It's late, can I help you?"

Kagome smiled brightly, looking around out of sheer curiosity. "I..Is Kaede-bachan is still here?"

The girl grimaced and looked over her shoulder at the other two girls. "No ma'am. She married an old yokai a few years ago. My parents live over there." She pointed to a small hut with a rickshaw resting along the side. "She comes by every now and then. Best to go find her in the mountains. The forger stole her heart."

"Totosai-san?" Kagome gaped, trying to make sense of any of this.

The young woman beamed. "It was him. He was bringing the old hanyou a new sword and took Baba away."

"Where is the hanyou?" Kagome snapped, a little less graciously than expected.

"I'm not sure." The girl responded with a shrug. "My mother and father may be of some help. I'm not supposed to be talking to you this late, especially with all of the bewitching going on."

"Alright. I thank you for talking to me this long...er..."

"Saori." The girl stated proudly.

"Arigato, Saori-chan." Kagome bowed, waving at the younger girls pressed to the window. As she turned away, she stared at the hut the girl had pointed at and thought better of knocking on the frame. Still, she didn't have much time.

Sighing, she rubbed her sore eyes and fought the urge to run away. She sucked up her nerve and pattered on the edge of the hut. Soon after, a grumbling man dragged something heavy across the room - no surprise given the times.

When the flap parted, Kagome fell to pieces. There, equally as astounded as she, stood Miroku-sama gaping his mouth like a little boy. His staff hit the ground as his arms latched around her small frame. "Kagome-sama..." he breathed into her shoulder, holding her as tightly as he could. "It's been too long."

"Miroku-sama, I tried to come back a long time ago." The woman unraveled.

Over his shoulder, the houshi, aged by more masculine features and longer hair, still pulled back along his shoulders, called for his wife. "Sango! Someone is here for you." He said in a broken disbelief.

When the woman staggered to the door, her arms instantly flew around the girl as her eyes became alive with delight. "I've missed you!" She cried into the night as she pushed her husband away from the girl. "I've missed you everyday."

The women sat on the ground crying while Miroku lit a fire in the pit. He tended to the tea while the women talked about their lives until now. They were animated, like children that had played their favorite games.

Sango was the first to mention InuYasha. It hadn't been as expected, but Kagome listened intently. He had left the village in search of guidance and discipline. It unlike him, but he had come and gone for the last several years. Sango told her of a woman that was taken by him and tried so desperately to win his affections.

It had sounded a lot like her. This woman didn't hold his heart, didn't own any piece of his history, or belong in the same life as he did and she was jealous of a woman that had claimed him?

Miroku's nature lead him to interject as he poured a few cups of tea for the company. "You know, Kagome-sama... InuYasha will return as he pleases. Every time, he goes to the well and tries to use it and then leaves for months. It's been this way for almost ten years."

"That makes me feel a little better that he remembers me. I have something I need to give him before I return. I don't know why I have it. Maybe it was lost, but I found it before my Jii-chan passed and couldn't look at it." Kagome said as she pulled out the haori.

Both looked to one another and back to the girl. Sango's thin hand rested on Kagome's with a frown, "He may not be what you remember, Kagome-chan..."

"What do you mean?" She furrowed her brows, inspecting Miroku's expression waning like the fire in the house.

"His yokai blood was sealed and he is no longer a hanyou." The priest looked away as he plucked at the ground beneath his body. Kagome's reaction was exactly as expected and Sango could do nothing but offer the girl her hand.

"How? When? Why would someone take that away from him?" The former miko whailed, holding the robe to her chest as if it it was injured.

"He chose to have a mortal life, Kagome-sama." Miroku said, "He chose to die and be reincarnated to find you. The problem with that is, it may or not work in this lifetime or the next. You may not be you, and your souls, even though they were bound, may not find one another."

All hope was lost, wasn't it? It was certainly a catch 22 if there ever had been one, and Kagome decidedly wished she would have just sucked it up and not acted on impulse. Maybe her mundane life with Koji wasn't so bad.

"Where does he go when he isn't here?" Kagome asked.

"Kagome-chan you..."

"Ah, Sango, my love..." Miroku interjected, "The heart wants what it wants and if she wants to know the truth of what happened to him, she needs to see for herself. She can't change what has happened, but she can save him from his own mind."

"But, not alone." Sango said darkly, both oblivious to the woman sitting in front of them. Kagome really didn't feel like being in a lover's spat right now. She wanted to go crawl back in bed and eat that TV dinner she was complaining about. All of this was overwhelming. Smothering among other things...

"Where is he?" Kagome asked again, raking her nails across the ground. She wasn't in any state of mind to be told 'no', or be told she needed to do anything, actually.

Sango's dark eyes fell over her husband as he pointed down the pathway out of the village. "Aokigahara." Was all he said.

Assuming the yokai were still treacherous, Kagome knew that it meant she had to find a bow. Not that she would have still held the same skill as when she had left, but she could make do, she supposed. Koji did teach her kendo and various other martial arts she could use on human counterparts, but without her magic, where was she?

"I'll set out in the morning. I have to find him." Kagome whispered, trying to wrap her head around all of this. "I can't forget him."


	2. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

**AN: Thanks for all of the reads, follows and reviews everyone! **

**Guest: There's going to be a few little twists and turns here and there. Hopefully, you'll enjoy them! Don't be depressed! This is going to be pretty intense!**

**B3LOV3D: Thank you! There's only one more after this, so I hope that you'll like where it's going. This is a little different for me, because I don't write actiony scenes very often. But I hope they've turned out well!**

**xsachi: Everything has a happy ending in some way or another. ;)**

**Warm-Amber92: Girl, you know how emotional I get when I write things! I cried through part of this chapter, so we'll have to invest in some Kleenex. Haha. I hope you like her reaction! Thank you for all the support, as always.**

**Let me know what you guys think of this! I'm kind of nervous. I've never written anything quite like this.**

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Morning came in a blur of crispness as the fading heat of summer warmed the interior of the hut. Kagome hadn't slept on a tatami in half a decade and recalled why modern beds were far superior. Sango, even with little sleep, had been up well before dawn. The house smelled like egg and some sort of pickled game.

She'd sent Miroku to fetch a bow and sword upon request. It wasn't every day that Kagome was this alert at the pre-twilight hour, but being taxed wasn't an issue. The children had come and gone, eager to start and finish their daily chores. Which, in the end, left Sango basking in the glory of markets and tending to their home.

So much had changed, yet so little. It was almost foreign now. What was she to expect after almost ten years of being absent from this era? She doubted anyone would really remember Naraku or the Shikon no Tama. Some, of course, would and had passed it down.

Still, as the woman sat up in her dirty clothes she grimaced. The only thing she had was InuYasha's robes, and she had fashioned them to her body before, and it was starting to look like her only option. Sango's clothing was far too large now. She wasn't a heavy woman, but had filled out with a mother's figure and expanded bosom.

Inside of all of these adult bodies were the wayward teens that had lost so much. She could still see them in their aged faces and altered appearances. Their hearts were forever the same, Kagome mused as she turned away from her friend.

Sango carried on, telling her about the surprise marriage of Totosai and Kaede. It had been quite a reverred affair, after all. There was more of an acceptance for yokai-human union, yet at the same time, it was shunned. From the stories, Kagome knew that Rin had followed Sesshomaru-sama to the West and bore him many sons.

It was almost strange that Shippo was a man and fallen in love with a human girl in the neighboring village; apparently, a very jealous one at that. They spoke of Kohaku and his life in his own village. Kagome had long since finished dressing the those deeply coveted robes and stood tall in front of Sango as she made her a bowl of rice and egg.

They ate and cleaned the mess, like always. Sango wrapped her arms around herself as she watched Kagome's lanky body kneel down to pick up something that had fallen from the haori. Her long hair hid her face, but she knew that the object in her hand was more important in that moment than speaking.

"His kotodama no nenju broke?" Kagome asked, thumbing over the small bead.

Sango brushed a hand through her bangs and looked away. "His mind broke. He became a yokai with no rational thought. His powers were sealed when he calmed down after the thousand man slaughter of Musashi." She swallowed, not having the heart to look her friend in the eye.

"Poor InuYasha." Kagome frowned. Her heart couldn't take this forlorn story that was unfurling.

He was probably suffering more now than he ever had. If she had managed to stay behind, he would have been safe. For how long, she didn't know... but it would have been better if she had. All of those people would have been spared and he would have clean hands.

Closing her eyes, sat the bead upon her clothes and turned to find Miroku proudly carrying a satchel of rice, a bow, quiver and fairly decent katana in his arms. "It was a good morning." He beamed, placing a kiss on Sango's cheek.

"Thank you, Miroku-sama!" Kagome said gratefully. Her shoes were seemingly far too big for her to even grow into. Cautiously, she tied the katana across her chest, leaving room for the bow and quiver on her back.

"I wish we could be of assistance, Kagome-sama." Miroku said sadly, glancing across the way.

"You don't have to worry about me. If I can, I'll find Shippo-chan...Or he'll find me." She laughed, "You take care of your family and I'll find InuYasha."

She wasn't sure how much of that was true, but she would try. If anyone came looking for her in her era, it was surely too late for her to care. She could find another job, another boyfriend... There was only one InuYasha and only one set of friends she loved.

Not long after breakfast, she said her pardon and began walking down the winding road to a familiar country. On-lookers stared, as they always had, at the oddly dressed woman that didn't quite belong. She was certainly out of shape, but the slick sheen of greenery kept her mind off of her aching legs as she made it to a merchant village a few miles away.

It was only a moment before a fiery, pointed-toothed youth bombared her with warm arms and wild eyes. Shippo's voice was crass, deep like InuYasha's had been. He was wiry, narrow eyed and taller than she was. His tail was still bushy, but those claws were long and feral. Kagome blushed a little at his transformation and kept it to herself. He was a fine man now, and she hoped that he would come with her on her journey - if it was okay with his jealous mate.

She had come along to see what all of the fuss was about, and she was displeased at the scantily clad woman talking to the man. Kagome tried her best to ease her worry, and compliment her bright wardrobe and silky hair. None of which did the job. Shippo had to do most of the talking and tell her the back story to their relationship. Most of which meant - "she was my mother. That would be weird if I was messing around with her."

The former miko wasn't surprised that it took hours of coersion. She would have been, and was, the same was about someone else. Having to utter his name again was the upmost in displeasure. How could she assume that InuYasha would even want anything to do with her now that she had returned? God, Mr. Shrew and Nita-san seemed like heaven right now.

Even her mother's dog, which she hoped wasn't caught in a vortex - half in - half out of reality.

At some point of intense negotiating, Shippo returned to the waterside where Kagome sat skipping rocks along the pond. She hadn't seemed to thrilled to sit in the sun all day, as modern luxury had yet again become something she missed. Maybe she was just 100% ungrateful.

"Let's go, Kagome-chan." Shippo said. It had startled Kagome into standing attentively, shaking her head.

"I think I'm going to have to get used to you being a giant man-fox." Kagome laughed, brushing her fingers playfully through her curls. "Do you think this will be a long journey?"

Shippo knelt down and she froze, furrowing her brows as her fingers pointed. "Wh-what is this?" She eyed him precariously as his expression fell.

"Are you going to get on?" He asked dryly. Well, some of InuYasha definitely rubbed off on him in more ways than one. He got the surly attitude and remotely accomodating persona down.

"You don't have to do that."

"I'm faster than you." Shippo said sharply, gesturing for her to hurry. "I don't want Sachi to see. She'll murder me. She'll do worse of an 'osuwari' to me than you ever did to the asshole."

"Don't talk like that." Kagome scolded as she hesitantly climbed onto the boy's back. He wasn't as comfortable as InuYasha had been, but beggars can't be choosers. "You're forever a five year old to me."

"Heh."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Being so," The girl sulled, glowering at the whisps of red hair that struck her face. "like _him_."

Shippo shrugged beneath her as he wandered down the path out of the township. "He was my father, what do you expect? I have traits of both of you. I think I turned out alright." He grinned

It made her feel good that she had made an impact, and InuYasha as well. If she had stayed, he could have lived with them as their child - provided InuYasha actually marry her, or mate her.

"I'll be able to smell Father, so it won't take too long to find him. I hope I can have him back to you by nightfall. He was neaby a few nights ago, so I know he isn't far."

Kagome knitted her brows together, looking at the position of the sun. She flipped her watch over and noted it was only around nine in the morning. Hopefully, between the two of them, they would be able to find him before dark.

"Miroku-sama said something about Aokigahara." Kagome stated plainly.

The kit nodded and glanced to the direction of Mt. Fuji. "He should still be near there, then. He is really secretive about passing through Kaede's village. We're not exactly sure who sealed his blood, but I know that it was voluntary. If we can find that person and the woman that followed him around, I bet we could find out."

Kagome felt that damning twinge of jealously eat at her. In all of her years of overcoming it, it snapped right back into place when something of _hers_ was being messed with. God, listen to her, now she knew why no one wanted to be around her.

The events of the night before and now were so closely wound, they were almost surreal. The possibilty of her waking up at the hospital, still tending to Nita-san, was eating away at her like a plague. She didn't think that she could uphold her promise not to jump of Tokyo Tower if that happened.

Still, the strength in Shippo's back and hands politely clasping around her knees, was enough to jar her back into the reality. He hadn't the faintest idea what was going through her mind, and she was beyond thankful. All of these people that had been so close to her had reopened their hearts as though she had never left. Honestly, she felt displaced.

Being away for such a long time had made her recoil socially. She was the tether between them all. Now, she was a person that knew them. She knew how to take vitals, call a crash cart, revive someone, draw blood, administer medicine - she _knew _those things.

She wanted to _exist_ with these people like she had before. Age was a funny thing. The insight she was gathering, even at 24, was that the world doesn't revolve around friendships and love. It revolves around the god-damn sun.

Sighing, the woman tried to still her running mind and hunkered down against her pseudo-son's back. She watched the trees bend at his speeds, birds diminish into black flecks along the cloudy horizon... It was how she remembered it.

Closing her eyes, she vividly imagined how she felt when she rested on InuYasha's back. For such a prudish girl, she had the imagination of a sailor. She had wanted him all and indulged in wrapping her legs around his body.

This was different, slightly awkward.

The woman was thankful that they stopped at a merchant town; full of rickshaw carts and guards from the capitol. They were lucky to be spared some rice and water from the famine that spread while she was away. Most of her food was given to Shippo as he was finally able to eat his own food without being harmed.

A few of the townsfolk stopped and stared at Kagome as she guzzled down her urn of water. One of the shops offered her a pair of hakama, which she declined. Some of the older travelers saw her face and exclaimed with joy. It made her heart swell that she had been remembered in such a glorious fashion.

The absence of the others nipped the bud on that quickly. It felt hollow without the ensemble. Fractions are no where near the whole.

Slumping on the wooden bench, Kagome looked towards her companion slouched over his knees, rudely eating his fish. "So, how was InuYasha when I left?"

The man crinkled his freckled nose, shaking his head. "He was less than manly about it." He rolled his eyes. "He was stuck up Kaede's ass. He tried to be, but he was kind of lost. It was almost like a dog without an owner, as you would have said."

Kagome rubbed her bruised knees and looked towards the crest of Fuji-san. "It's still hard to believe we're all grown. I never thought that we would ever change. It's almost like the well had a mind of its own. Change is terrifying." She relinquished, trying to formulate something else to talk about.

"So, tell me, did you ever love anyone else?"

That stung.

"I did," She said, pulling at her hair as though it was a security blanket. "..._almost_. I have a man I'm supposed to marry in my era. His name is Koji." She pressed a thin smile on her face, equally shedding a forlorn glance at the red-head.

Shippo had never so much as gave her of a disapproving glance, yet relented to his will. "Kagome-chan," He licked his lips and grabbed her hand to get her attention. "You have to make a choice."

"There never was one." Conviction was sound in her voice.

When Shippo was certain of her words, he released her hand and escorted her out of the village. His nerves seemed more frazzled than before, leading the girl to believe there was something he refused to tell her. She had never been on that end of things, and being left in the dark over so much had become almost insatiable.

The longer they traveled, she soon realized that he was becoming more and more offputting. He was silent, which had always been usual. Unless that had changed, she found it unnerving. It made her cling to her katana a little tighter as she trudged in her fanciful Crocs. For all she knew, poor Shippo could have been embarassed by her choice of clothing.

Inwardly, the girl sighed and noticeable kept her distance. "So," She began, looking around the newfound thrush of trees looming overhead. "Tell me, have there been any other demons like Naraku since I've been gone?"

Shippo stiffened, pausing in stance to narrow his thick brows at her. "Don't mention _Him_." He snarled darkly.

Kagome flinched, pressing her mouth into a tight line. "Don't snap at me, Shippo-chan. I haven't been in here in years. You can't expect me to know what buttons don't need to be pressed." She hissed. She didn't know where all of this hostility came from.

The man glowered, emerald eyes scanning the perameters for anyone that may have heard. "We don't speak of _Him_ because there was one last incarnation that was not destroyed. It has no baring over the Shikon no Tama, or the Curse of Naraku. He was a piece of him that survived the massive yokai and human slaughter. There is a war right now amongst yokai and I guess when InuYasha went berserk, it was for the best his demon was sealed."

Kagome pulled on the quiver of arrows along her shoulder, and brushed her hair from her eyes. "I'm in the dark on so much I can't even begin to fathom all of this. I just came to see everyone, not become aware of a war. All of my power was lost with the Shikon no Tama, Shippo-chan. There is nothing I can do to help."

"Your power wasn't lost. Don't act so stupid, Kagome-chan." He retorted. He was bold. Overly so, in fact. InuYasha had clearly bruised him. That sweet, obnoxiously loving boy was gone.

"Then tell me where it went. Tell me why I couldn't go through the well. Tell me why all of these things happened, Shippo-chan. Did the _well _summon me here?" Her gray eyes were wide, intently peering into his as though she was dragging him into the sea to his death.

Shippo scowled, blowing a breath into his bangs as he searched his printed navy and white hakama for a scroll. "You fucking know better than anyone why you came. You didn't come for _us_, Kagome." He said sharply, making the girl clench her jaw. How could he even say something so incredulous?

"You came for _InuYasha_." He continued. "_We _are a part of your choice to be with him, should he have you." He paused for a moment, making a sour expression. "Of course he'd have you, in case you're wondering. We're all standoffish these days, more so than before. I have something of my own to protect, and Sango and Miroku have so much that I can't even begin."

"Just stop, please." Kagome said, slumping with her back against the coarse tree bark. "I can't handle of this." She gestured loosely, halfheartedly trying to maintain her vitality.

"No," Shippo conceded, "It's my fault. Just take this, read it, toss it, somethin'."

The girl took the scroll and stared at the images painted along the parchment. It was of she and InuYasha with the ballad written along the side. She smiled crookedly, unsure of how to feel about the infernal thing.

Shippo's pointed ears twitched when the wind kicked up as he watched the girl. "You like it?"

"I do."

"Well, I made it. I hoped that someone would be able to have _your_ story written."

Kagome stared at the man graciously, hiding her face beneath her hair in an embarassed delight. She swayed like the school girl she used to be and carefully rolled it up and returned it. For a moment, they stood adjacent as she inspected his features. He looked back at her oddly before clapping his hands together as he knelt down. "Off too Fuji?"

"Off to Fuji!" She exclaimed, unsheathing her sword as she climbed on her warhorse-fox. "Let me save my prince!" The girl laughed, trying to make the best of the situation. She tried her best to stay proper upon his back as he darted it off into the distance. Shippo eased his way through the thicker parts of the forest before garnering even a faster pace along the river bank.

Apparently, the forest was filled with hidden yokai. They were scarce now, but liked to stay quiet until nightfall. They had mostly become nocturnal creatures to avoid slaughter, or imminent death by others of their kind. A few had intergrated into more human lives and become domesticated. He was among them, which was no surprise. A lot of the lesser yokai had become dinner for a lot of starving families, offering attributes of their bloodline. Well, from what Shippo had told her anyway.

It seemed so complicated.

Everything did.

This was how she felt when she had traveled for the very first time. That fear was creeping up and down her spine as they lunged over the large rock formations in the drier planes around the mountains. It was well into the afternoon by the time they made it to the places where the Birds of Paradise caused her to be kidnapped by the devilish wolf.

Come to think of it, Koji seemed to resemble the bastard. It would make sense, wouldn't it? The girl scowled. Couldn't sleep with her in one lifetime, try and try again? Ha. She snorted quietly to herself as she held on for dear life. Shippo seemed to be breezing through the inclines like they were nothing. Yet, it was a taste she had to reacquainted with.

"How much longer until we make it to Fuji-san?" Kagome squealed as Shippo haphazardly lost his footing. She inhaled a scream, closing her eyes as her long hair whipped above her head. The kit laughed and grabbed onto the ledge, flipping them along one of the many plateaus.

Kagome fell off of him, clenching the ground as though she was trying to unearth it.

"Not much further."

The fox peered across the skyline, zeroing in on a swelling of rice paddies in the distance. Beyond there rested Mt. Fuji. The forest, Aokigahara, rested like a shroud around the base, smothering it with mystery. Most of the ghostly beings roamed there. InuYasha had been hunting a way to unseal himself, surely. There would have been no other reason. The rogue incarnation of Naraku had slithered in the walls, making it impossible for life to exist for very long inside of the jungle like canopy of trees.

Shippo watched Kagome shrug off dirt and mud from her arms and legs. She didn't have the faintest clue that the forest was once green, lively... It was blackened, sick with the evils of the bastard's bloodline. He would live on, as no mortal, yokai, or witch could remotely dispell him from his rooting.

With a grunt, Shippo swallowed the lumping in his throat. "Kagome-chan, be ready to use your bow."

The girl blanched, "Oh, Shippo-chan..." Behind the giggling facade, she was trembling like a coward. What would they think of their Lady Kagome now? She could barely piss in the dark by herself, what made them think that she could handle killing something after all this time?

It took it out of her sore thighs to climb back on Shippo one last time. The rest of the afternoon was spent holding in the worst urge to pee and cry, among all of the uncontrollable upset that beseiged her. The magic of the wind whipping through her hair was gone as hesitation set in with the low gleam of the evening twilight. Once she got a chance to run into the brush and relieve herself, Kagome found that the unsanitary side of Sengoku Jidai was still unwanted.

The pair ate a small bite at the local ochaya in exchange for a few measly coins. Things had gotten so bad that prostitution was for food instead of money. Kagome wished that modern currency would have been viable means. She would have given them every last Yen in her wallet.

Overall, the day had been quiet. Too quiet for Sengoku Jidai. The hum of the night-time wind kissed Kagome's damp skin, sticking her pores with a jellied sweat that wouldn't go away. She waited against the backdrop of lantern lights and festive koto melodies. Centering herself after this slap-in-the-face surprise was like trying to shake a virus. She cupped her hands along her rosy cheeks, knowing that her would-be-lover was near. Shippo had caught his scent on the wind and immediately hunted the source.

The woman's senses were haywire; sparking with ferverent jolts of heat all along her limbs and center. She could feel her nose numb with a ghastly sensation and her ears burned. She couldn't take much more. Vomiting felt like it was the best option, yet refrained when Shippo came bounding back into the village on his haunches.

She released the breath she had been holding for god knows how long. Once she was empty, her breathing steadied as the man's face lit up ecstatically. His acute fangs peeked from his lip as he waved at her to follow him. Kagome clanked as she kicked her feet against the cobbles and loose rock laid around the path. Once the lights diminished, her heart became staccato. She couldn't register the beats as the man reached back and grabbed her hand. Years and years of waiting lead to _this. _

It was crucial.

It would make or break everything.

Her childhood and youth were hanging in a predetermined balance. The sun could barely glint in her eyes as they swung past many darker corners of the thicket of foliage. Shippo turned to smirk at her joyously, with a red feathering of hair hiding his eyes.

The young woman couldn't speak. Her eyes were raw, ready to flood her skin with brackishness yet again. How could this pressure be stopped? There were no words, no weighty metaphor she could have used. Closing her eyes, she felt Shippo's footsteps slow until the halted completely at the very edge of the pathway.

Kagome reopened her eyes to see a large river embankment and frowned. "Where are we?" She blinked, mouth parted delicately as she caught her breath.

The kit pointed to the very center of the lake that the river bled into. The golden hues of the sun shown brightly across the darker sweeps of navy and red that washed across the ponding water. Narrowing her eyes, she saw a tall figure commanding a vessal atop the glassy water. Immediately, the woman fell to her knees.

Disbelief wrought its heaviness upon her, dragging her into a catatonic state. Her hands gripped at her cherubic cheeks as she withheld the hardness of her tears cutting across her lashes. The tension in her muscles crushed her ribcage until she could no longer gasp for air.

If she had been any more aware, Kagome would have noticed the slight glare Shippo cast across the waterfront. Instead, she merely wept into her palms. She wanted to see him up close, touch his face... feel his skin against hers. Blotting away the blurs on her mottled face, she rushed to the edge of the embankment. The sun colored her eyes with its gradient hues, filling her skin with ruddy sheens of red and pink as the wind drew patterns with her inky curls.

Her swollen mouth parted as she tried to say his name. This day wasn't supposed to come. She was blank as she smoothed her hands over the protective haori around her small frame. Those black tendtrils of his hung loose around his bottom, longer than she remembered. He was dressed black hakama and a plain white haori, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

She prayed he would look her way, shift his sails and find his destination in her arms. As he rowed, she watched him look around but not in her direction. Stupidly, the girl fumbled with a rock and shucked it across the quiet terrain. The disturbance caught his attention and he snapped his dark, mismatched eyes to her form.

At first, she didn't know if he recognized her. Shippo forced a smile along his pallid lips and excused himself. There was no place for him and he thought better of the impending cryfest that he didn't want any part of.

The woman was just about as useless in that state as one of Miroku's sutras. Besides, the instant that InuYasha's eyes fell on Kagome's form, the small boat was easily toppled over as he lunged into the water without a second thought. The ore still floated along the water as he swam the hundred yards to shore.

Kagome could barely contain the violent urge to jump in after him. She restlessly pulled her arms, bit her dirty nails, and plucked at the ends of her hair as she shifted foot to foot. This wasn't happening was it? The girl knelt upon the damp grass, holding a shaking hand out as InuYasha's sturdy fingers wrapped around her pulling her downward.

As he emerged from the dark water, his long black hair hung along his cheeks and cloaked his back. He panted wiping the moisture from his face as he inspected Kagome. He pressed his fingers along her temples, over the smooth exposed skin of her arms. His thumb traced over her trembling lips as he pulled himself out of the pond.

"Ka-gome." The wily man whispered. The woman winced, nuzzling into his palm as his slick hands and cold, wet clothes pressed against her in an embrace. His nose rested in the crook of her neck, inhaling the sweetness that he always remembered.

"InuYasha, I tried... I tried so hard to come..." The woman breathed into him. Her nails dragged in between his shoulder blades, sliding over the soggy clothing over his notched spine. No matter how hard she pressed her palms against him, he didn't feel tangible. He was no more real than the pictures in a storybook.

InuYasha smiled weakly, his breath beating upon her face. She wanted to close the distance lingering between them. She wished that he had been her first - _her only_. Eagerly, her fingers found the urge to coil along his ruggedly aged face. Her fingers brushed against the small scar below his lip and pressed her forehead against his nose.

When they were young, they would have never been so open. Their hearts thrummed against the others chest, making it known how deeply those feelings ran. Those that were dead, had become ghosts waiting on bodies to possess. How long had they waited and endured to touch and to soothe without discouragement.

Kagome licked her lips as she pulled back, standing on the tips of her toes. She wasn't waiting any longer. Her soft, warm mouth pressed against his, parting it with the slickness of her tongue. InuYasha reciprocated with a hunger she hadn't forseen. He was cautiously detailing each tooth, each fold in her lip as he consumed her.

There was no innocence in their kiss. It was adult, full of a seedy wanton of emotion. It was what she had dreamed it would have been. He tasted sweeter than she recalled, but the way his body pressed into hers and the way her stomach knotted with each slow pass of his hands along the backsides of her legs, made her dissolve.

The man ached for his hanyou senses. He could have inhaled deeper -found the hidden flora without her ever knowing. Kagome was intoxicating regardless. He had waited and put himself through hell long enough. If anyone deserved a happily ever after it was her. Pushing her to the ground, he rested on top of her, holding her hands on either side of her head.

His soaked clothing dragged along her body as he adjusted his weight atop her waist. His wet hair hung in rivulets, leaking onto her sweltering skin. His haori had slid over his shoulder, exposing the golden flesh of his bony collar. Kagome bit her lip, sweetly staring into his face. There had been so many sleepless nights spent dreaming of such a miraculous prelude to the indecencies of adulthood.

She couldn't absorb the salty hair intertwined with the dark hair that wound around them like a curtain. His chin and strong jaw were blotted with stubble. She brushed her fingers along the bristles as she stared into the Heterochromatic eyes staring back at her. They had been dark, almost violet in his younger days. One was tawny, bloodied by golds and browns. It was most likely a left over attribute of his yokai half.

Silently, the man nipped at her lip. There had been so much that he wanted to say to her, tell her over these desolate years. His clothing was a gift he had sent and thanked the heavens that she had found them. With nothing to protect, he once ferocious beast offered them to someone that needed them. Whether she had used them prior, he wasn't certain.

Tessaiga was a mantle piece in his small hut, now. She would have been disappointed in him that all of the struggle to improve it had been in vain. A low-human rumble - a shadow of the animalistic growl - cut through his throat as he watched the blush on her cheeks reign. "I wish that you had stayed. We can't change that, and I wish I was better to you. I lingered on a ghost instead of the future. You were supposed to be mine." InuYasha rasped, finding the woman's expression to falter. He couldn't smell her tears anymore, but he could always tell when they were about to crawl out of the corners of her eyes.

Kagome didn't know what to say - where to begin. Sucking back a snivel, the former miko screwed her eyes shut, listening to the hoarse breathing and crescendo of heart beats above her.

"I tried every day for months to come back. After a while, I decided to move on. I put you in the back of my head I wanted to pretend you didn't exist. I went to school, moved away from the shrine." She shrugged beneath the haori that once belonged to him as he stout fingers squeezed at hers. Her eyes tightened as Koji and Hojo and all of the men she had liked cut across her thoughts. She couldn't even bear looking at him as her quivering voice shattered her own ears. "I lived with Hojo-kun and then met a sweet man, named Koji. I didn't love them. I don't love them."

InuYasha winced, lowering his forehead to hers. "Kagome..." He breathed into her,

"They were good to me. I shouldn't even be here. I have a career helping people, like I did here. God," She inhaled sharply, "It's childish of me to think that you would have been my one and only. I had only wanted you. Everything I did..."

"We're only human." The man chided, raising up onto his haunches. He exhaled through his nose, wiping a hand through his mussed hair. He looked at the grass beside them and plucked at it as his heart stopped throbbing. "I figured, what the hell, if I die I can find you again." He shrugged his broad shoulders as he cast Kagome a remorseful glance.

The girl's brows pinched as pushed herself upon her elbows. "I loved you regardless of what you were. I don't know how you've grown, or changed, but I can't tell you that I don't love you. I don't think that I ever would stop waiting."

InuYasha tensed, clenching his rigged jaw. He cast a melancholic glance over her trembling body and merely shook his head. "Kagome, we were starcrossed, I guess." He shrugged, looking behind him to see the setting sun blistering the silhouettes of the trees.

This was what he had waited for, wasn't it? To hear her say all of these magical things and make him _feel _again? It struck him as odd that she was baring her soul and he was refutably taut in his endeavors to keep the truth from her. Now, what would he say?

Biting at his lip, he pushed himself to his feet and stood tall above her. "I did you wrong, I know that. I felt like it was a punishment and I resented you. I did for a long time. Everyone said I was being stupid for begruding you. I felt like you never belonged to me. I wanted you to. I wanted you so badly that it drove me mad." He laughed on a breath. It wasn't hysterical, crazed, anything other than a disbelieving note on the subject.

Kagome couldn't say anything in response. She felt like a knife had punctured her heart and carved jaggedly and without refrain. Her tiny fingers cut into her palms, alarming her senses with the prickling of her nails. "It's my fault that you killed a thousand men?" The girl fidgetted. It was the best she could do under the circumstance.

InuYasha looked at her blankly and down at the whittled cuticles that were no more frightening than a child's. "I don't blame _you_. I blame my _need, want, loyalty_ to _you_." He said, reaching into the fold of his haori, "I was gone for a long time. I decided, like I said, that I would die eventually _this _way." He gestured to his weaker body and pulled at the fabric that hung about his figure. "I regret not telling you. I regret following Kikyo like a lost cause. When my subjugation beads broke, I had no owner."

Kagome furrowed her brows, "InuYasha, you were your own person. You never had an owner. You belong to you. A heart can belong to another, but not -"

"I belonged to _you_." Was all he said.

His chest heaved beneath the heavy, damp fabric as he tore his vision away from her. He wanted to walk away, leave himself to fume. Wasn't this supposed to be joyous? Where were the brilliant touches of magic in the moment?

The former miko rose to stand short against his stature. She peered at him through the rift in her bangs, forcefully gripping to his collar as she pushed herself to meet his lips again. She pressed against the tension until he finally submitted to her.

In the forest line, Shippo sat upon his perch - hidden beneath the leaves along the brittle old branch. They were pitiful. He never thought he would see the day when his father figure became a withering old sack of skin. Kagome, on the other hand, had turned into a woman of immense beauty, probably unseen by her and her modesty. Closing his eyes, he listened to the entirity of their tearful union and spat enviously at the confessions of adoration.

_He_ had loved her, too.

All of these people settled. He settled for Sachi. It made him feel ill that he pined for a woman he considered to be his mother. Yet, how was it supposed to feel to be overlooked for a man that fucked up on countless occasion? Hell, he wasn't even the man that she loved anymore. InuYasha was an excuse for what he was. To deny himself of the very lesson she had taught was absurd.

It wouldn't have done any good to say a word. InuYasha was aware of his feelings for the woman and they refused to speak of it. If there had ever been day where it took giving her a choice, one of them would be decimated. Now, if he wanted to claim her, all he had to do was slash his claws across InuYasha's thin neck and whisk her away.

It was a pretty lost cause in itself, seeing as the woman was climbing all over the once great demon lord.

As it were, the kit stiffened at the unearthly howls of the forest. It cried for warmth when the sun crested the final edge of the earth. When the darkness began to settle, the fine hairs on the back of his neck began to raise. Kagome and InuYasha needed to leave before the yokai and nightmarish entities came crawling from their beds.

The man sprang on his hind legs to the ground, settling his claws into the dirt. His intrusion of the unfortunate pair had ultimately given him guardianship over them. Flexing his claws, he readied himself for the opportunity to blow off some steam.

Kagome must have felt the upset in the air, and grabbed onto InuYasha's hand. Her eyes flickered over him in the waxing moonlight, frightened like a doe. He, himself, had not stayed out during the night in some time and squelched the desire to protect her as he used to - even though, he would with his life.

In Sengoku Jidai, there was always a price.

Whether it be a life, the loss of loved ones, a predetermined juncture in the war, it was still too costly to ignore. Shippo eventually rounded the bend and found the woman clutching her bow. InuYasha merely steadied himself for a journey he wasn't sure he was ready to take. He had become a shrew, a hermit, living alone in a tiny hut in a near by village in the quiet. His warring wild days were over.

Yet, as he looked at the fragile woman he frowned at his body and wished to find a cure. If she stayed, he would hunt the earth over for the woman that sealed him. Upon seeing Shippo, he nodded in acknowledgement and breathed softly for a moment. "Well, thank you for showing up." He bit sarcastically.

The future-born looked between them with distain. The tension was so thick it was almost smothering. "Look, let's go back to the town." She beamed awkwardly, feeling the kit's eyes narrow on her voraciously.

InuYasha nodded and knelt down. Kagome fought the giddiness in her heart as she acquiested. He felt familiar, nostalgic between her thighs as she clenched his sides. Her breasts pressed into his spine, feeling his heat permeate through his chilled clothes. Shippo ignored the display and scowled as they rushed towards the town.

The woman's hand slid down her side until she felt the hilt of the old katana. There was something amiss about the night, and she instantly clenched her fingers around it. Shippo had sped on ahead with the flurry of rustling in the treeline. InuYasha panted, adjusting to carrying the girl on his back again.

She wasn't as light as he recalled, but not heavy by any means. He hoped if anything came for them that he wouldn't get her killed. Looking over her shoulder, Kagome sensed something watching her - waiting - then it hit her.

A blindly hard pressure snapped through her body.

InuYasha whipped his head around as he slowed to a stop, fair near dropping the girl.

Kagome swallowed, catching her breath as she absently trembled reaching for the sword on the ground. It was lost in the boggy mess of moss and vines, but she eventually found it as she sat upright.

The man's calloused hands clasped to her shoulders, "Are you alright? What the hell happened?"

Kagome held her forehead in her hands, "I'm not sure. I feel dizzy."

"Did something strike you?"

She shook her head responsively. "I-I don't think so. I just feel like I'm going to be sick."

Maybe this was too much? She still didn't believe any of this was happening. One day and it was like a week of turmoil and emotional caving. Slowly, she used the blade to steady herself. InuYasha glanced over her shoulder, staring at a black figure hidden amongst the brush. It stood camoflauged, blending in with more of the same creatures.

They were apart of the Aokigahara. They were dead, whatever they were. Everything inside dies. He instinctively held her close, snarling weakly as he had forgotten his place in life. Kagome frantically looked up at him and shook as she clenched the sword in her sweaty palms.

"What do I do?" She breathed, feeling him try to pry the blade from her.

Jerking away, she snapped back at him as the sound of chirping and groans filled the bend. They were buried beneath a canopy of thick, slimy leaves. It was going to be hard to really see anything without the assisting eyes of a yokai. Their yokai just happend to have disappeared long before these things showed up.

Swallowing her pride, fear, nervousness, the woman pushed herself in front of the man and skillfully braced herself. She could _feel _them. Closing her eyes briefly, Kagome felt that jolt. It took the breath from her body again as her fingers tingled.

InuYasha grabbed for her as she sprinted off into the direction of the spectors. His hands couldn't catch her, or his feet make a quick enough pace. She was gone. Gone screaming like a banshee as one touched her, pulling her into the seedy blackness. He was striken with illness, covering his mouth as he fought the urge to vomit as the smell of decay wrapped around the perameters.

Still, he trudged on, weaponless and useless. Blinking, he closed his left eye - the human eye - and tried to see through the night. The tall and winding thistles and weeds were split down the center and he could see the red of _his _haori.

The tables had turned.

Was this how helpless she had felt? Looking around, he was blind until a cold, scaley hand wrapped around his neck as its owner gutterally exhaled.

His long legs kicked, nails tried so desperately to dig into the flesh of the beast. Instead, he was tossed to the ground by the snake-like imp, staring ravenously into his eyes. They gleamed like bloodied punctures over sterile white fangs. Up close, its features were rotted, only leaving room for the gaping holes of what were once nasal cavaties.

It looked almost burned as it inspected its prey. Could he breathe, he would have called for her loudly, but instead, he only uttered her name as he lifted a hand. Where was Shippo? Did that bastard leave him for dead again? That son of a bitch could have at least protected her in his place. Wincing, InuYasha arched his back into the beast as he removed his dashi and stabbed in the side.

The familiar expulsion of warm blood curtled along his hand as he kneed the thing off of him. It laid still, vacantly staring. Flinging the blood off the dagger, he turned to run only to be dragged back down violently. This time, Kagome heard her name as she eviserated two of them. One tried to grab her arm when she tried to escape and sent her into a heevyjeevy dance. She squealed in terror as a tongue slicked across her collar. Clutching the katana to her chest, she sucked in her throat, staring at the one she had missed.

Half of its body was strewn across the tiny clearing, whereas the rest had climbed along her body. She heard her name again and manned up. Hysterically, the girl sent the blade searing through its skull, pinning it to the muddied earth. Upon contact, she was electrified.

Her hair stood on end in the air, and her skin became an infinite spiral of color and pallid light, pink and celestial. Her lungs were frozen as she closed her eyes, feeling all of her energy swell until it unfurled into the ground, spreading her will across the terrain.

It was like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb. Once the light was gone, there was nothing left around her. No creatures, no InuYasha, no forest. It was just destroyed land. Trees were uprooted, the path was virtually nonexistant and birds and other flying yokai fell from the sky to rebound on the dirt.

Catching her breath, she panted upon her knees. Her hands were bruised with deep wounds and blood oozing from them. She could feel the sweat in her hair as she rolled over on her back, clutching her chest as her eyes searched for InuYasha.

Her voice was shot and she could no longer make a sound as she tried to call for him. Eagerly, she crawled until she was running. As a signal, she reached behind her to pluck an arrow from the quiver.

Swiftly, she saw the light of the moon for guidance as she aimed. Never pausing, the woman shot arrows over the moon, gleaming with an unleashed illumination that she had thought was gone.

He would surely see them and return to her.

She knew he wasn't dead.

She would have felt it. She could still feel his youki. No matter how subdued, InuYasha could be spared and released from his human body. It was then she felt Shippo's as well, hurdling in a distant direction.

Why was he running from her? She thought, ending her run at the entrance of the village.

On the ground, a small gold object reflected the starlight overhead. Kagome nimbly picked it up and held her breath.

"My locket."

Dented, scraped and worn beyond its pitiling life - the miko stood tall with the gift she had given the hanyou crushed to her heart.


End file.
